The traditional hard-sell, "If you like X you'll love Y" marketing pitch is, of course, anathema to the well-connected netizen ( "get thee behind me, marketing bot!"), but that's the only mode of communication that many corporations are comfortable with, and it will take some time until we see the publishers 'equivalent of an @zappos, or an @jetblue.

To sustain such financial numbers—and to pave the way for next summer's opening of a 12-acre Cars Land at Disney's California Adventure Park—Pixar and Disney, the animation studio's relatively new owner, needed a hard-sell crowd-pleaser with exactly the sort of high-octane action and high-decibel soundtrack that energizes—or blights, depending on your point of view—"Cars 2."